Toward the end of March or early April, the Xperia Arc S, Xperia Neo V and Xperia Ray will be the first to get Ice Cream Sandwich. The Xperia Arc, Xperia Play, Xperia Neo, Xperia Mini and Mini Pro, Xperia Active and Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman will start getting updates in late April/early May.

That's still some months away, of course, but kudos to Sony Ericsson for being so transparent about the process.

Huawei promises 'smartest, fastest, most high-performing smartphone yet' in February

Chinese smartphone and tablet manufacturer just hit us up to tease some new kit in 2012, promising we'll see "our smartest, fastest and most high-performing smartphone yet, taking a leap into the future of mobile communications." The announcement will come on the eve of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

Huawei has yet to really break into the U.S. market, though it does manufacture the uninspiring T-Mobile Springboard tablet. And while MWC isn't a U.S.-centric show, it is a high-profile show. And with Android Central in attendance yet again, you can bet we'll have plenty of American eyes pointed that way.

Verizon in the midst of yet another major data outage

Update: Looks like data's starting to come back for some of us. Still no word from Verizon yet.

Well, that's no good. Verizon Wireless is dead in the water this morning for what appears to be, well, most everybody this morning. 3G data ... dead. 4G data ... dead. Pick a 3G/4G LTE phone. It's dead. Phone calls can still be made, which means we're not overly worried about public safety. But it's yet another outage for Verizon, which already is the subject of much signal scrutiny these days.

Google Currents has received its first update, with no new features to report but a couple of important fixes.

In the changelog we get stability improvements, and performance improvements in data sync. The second of these in particular will be welcome, with sync initially proving to be quite slow in some cases.

More than 700,000 Android devices activated daily

Google's Andy Rubin tonight on Google+ announced that more than 700,000 Android devices are being activated every day. That's 29,166 devices (more or less) activated every hour. Or 486 devices every minute, or by the time you finish reading this post.

Rubin also explained what counts as an "activation," saying:

"We count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and "activations" means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service."

Microsoft wins initial ruling on one patent in their fight with Motorola, loses on six others

Microsoft has won a partial victory in their dispute with Motorola over patents, but it's far from the outcome they would have liked. The International Trade Commission has ruled that some Motorola products infringe on one of Microsoft’s patents. The same judge found no infringement of the six other Microsoft patents. This is just like the outcome of the Apple v. HTC mess that was decided just yesterday, and while on the surface it looks bad for Moto, in reality it invalidates 6 of Microsoft's patent claims. Claims that others, such as Samsung, are currently licensing for their products to avoid. This initial ruling is still subject to the final determination by the ITC, expected to happen before April 20, 2012.

In their press release, which you'll find after the break, Motorola makes it clear that they still plan to pursue their claims against Microsoft:

Microsoft continues to infringe Motorola Mobility’s substantial patent portfolio and Motorola Mobility has active patent infringement litigation and proceedings against Microsoft in a number of jurisdictions, including the ITC. Motorola Mobility remains confident in its position and will continue to move forward with its complaints.

Like all the other legal battles, in the end it's just a matter of money changing hands. Starting with more from your hand as devices get more expensive.

Kindle Fire update, Verizon acting weird [From the Forums]

We're getting ever so close to the holidays now but that hasn't had much of an impact on the Android news happening around the world seemingly. With the Galaxy Nexus and ICS still making their way into consumers hands it's generated a lot of buzz here on the blogs and in the forums -- if you're looking for more discussion, check out some threads below.

The Myriad Alien Vue is a system that allows TV and set-top box manufacturers to bring Android and HTML5 apps to their existing products with no decrease in performance. By offering OEMS this functionality along with a branded app store, Myriad is hoping manufactuers will be enticed to integrate their services to offer end users a better overall experience. The concept is interesting and it looks rather nice but adoption is a key thing here -- if manufactuers don't adopt the technology then it really isn't all that useful to anyone.

Either way, we're not really seeing a slow down in the efforts of folks looking to win the war of the living room but it's a fun battle to watch and we'll be keeping our eye on all the action. Jump on past the break for a quick look at Myriad Alien Vue in action and expect more when CES kicks off.

By now you've heard a lot of scuttlebutt about the Ice Cream Sandwich battery bug, and how it's affected the Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus. Or not. Either way, we've heard it, too. Since we happen to have several of each phones possibly affected, I decided to do a little independent research of my own. Tested were:

If you're rocking and rolling one of these phones, devs now have some source to build new kick-ass goodies. Be on the lookout for them, and show them some love when it happens -- this sort of thing can be pretty rough on the nerves to do! If you're one of those developers and itching to get at it, hit the link to HTC-Dev and grab what you need.

Droid Bionic gets a mysterious OS update

We love updates. That is, we love updates when we know what they are and what they do. Such is not the case with the Motorola Droid Bionic, which is in the midst of getting an update to system version 5.9.901. Verizon's yet to post a changelog, and the OS version is still Android 2.3.4. Though AC reader Jim does note that there appears to be a new "Emergency Alerts" app, which might or might not be a part of that emergency alert system Verizon accidentally cookied off early a few weeks ago.

We've hit up Big Red in hopes of unraveling this one, and we've got more pics after the break. In the meantime, hit the forum link below to see what everyone else is seeing.

Dropbox update preview showing off its ICS optimization

The guys over at Dropbox have slipped a preview of a forthcoming update to their Android application out into their forums, complete with optimization for Ice Cream Sandwich.

Besides looking pretty sweet on ICS, there are also a couple of other nice additions that are forthcoming with this release. These include single tap access to all file and folder actions, ability to favourite files for quick offline access, and bulk upload for photos and videos.

This release isn't yet available in the Android Market, so if you want to try it out, the download and full changelog can be found by hitting the source link.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Active review

The idea of tougher, water-resistant electronics is nothing new, but this year we’ve seen rugged smartphones becoming increasingly more mainstream. Motorola has had a go at this type of product with its DEFY line, while Casio gave us the ridiculous G’zOne Commando, a phone you could probably drive a tank over. The Xperia Active sees Sony Ericsson enter this arena with a water-resistant, aluminum-framed device, aiming to strike a balance between ruggedness, aesthetics and pocketability.

We’ve been getting to grips with the Xperia Active over the past couple of weeks, so read on to find out what we thought ...

A well-built and good-looking device with speedy internals and a bright, clear screen. Water resistance works as advertised. Lots of bundled accessories.

Will be too small and too bulky for many. Paltry internal storage and tiny SD card.

It's not the phone for everyone, but the Xperia Active is well-suited to the particular niche it's aiming for. It's a thoughtfully-designed smartphone that will appeal to anyone after something a little tougher, or smaller, than what's offered by mainstream devices.